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Saturday, May 21, 2011

My Review of One Tree Hill 8.22- This is My House, This is My Home

Well, the season finale has been viewed (finally!) by yours truly. I must say that I was a little underwhelmed, but I have my suspicions in that department which will be revealed in a little bit.

First, WELCOME BACK GAVIN DEGRAW! WOO-HOO!!! So happy to hear the original!

Before I go any further, I ended up being a little spoiled by the press release for next season put out by the network. They revealed that Brooke was the mother of twins (spoiling that reveal and the potential drama around her fall) and most of the rest of the drama seemed to be very unsurprising. There is also the fact that they seemed to be ready for this to be a *SERIES* finale, and so wrapped everything up nice and neatly like after the 4th season. I am not complaining, but compared to past season finales, this one was a little on the disappointing side. Then again, this does seem to be in keeping with the shows more family oriented theme. I like that theme given that they are now all grown up and everything. The drama this season seems less forced than before and more realistic. But, that's just my not so humble opinion. :-) The other factor is all of this is that this episode crunched a year (or so) into one episode. That is alot to put into that short a period of time. That might have had an impact on the story as well.

Let's start with the Scott family. Haley is reopening Karen's Cafe with Brooke (and it looks awesome!), Nathan is working as a sports agent with Clay, and Jamie is growing up and taking care of his adorable little sister. I have to say that Nathan's little "duet" with Lydia had to be one of the highlights of the entire episode. That was so d@mn cute. And thank God James didn't really sing. If I remember correctly, it is as bad as his dancing. <shudder> In fact, it's as bad as *MY* dancing...and that's truly scary. Given the fact that James hasn't signed on for next season (so far as I know anyway), I suspect that Haley is going to be very much the single parent. That was reinforced near the end with Jamie in the Keith Scott sweatshop, bouncing a ball along the bridge (see the opening credits) to Karen's Cafe where his mom told him to sit down for dinner. Talk about a major league flashback to the first season. Jamie as the stand-in for Lucas and Madison as a sort-of Haley maybe? :-) I like the fact that the show has swung full circle. Gives everything a nice sense of symmetry that is very important. And I loved that Nathan went to Dan with Jamie's first hit ball and the picture of Lydia. I understand why he doesn't want Dan in his family's life, but giving him that information was really nice and given the look on Dan's face, it was sincerely appreciated.

For Brooke and Julian, they spent most of the episode in pre-baby heaven. Preparing a cradle (or two) and measuring stomachs with Julian being trained too well to say how skinny Brooke looked and then when he said she looked fat she (naturally) was offended. That was just an amusing moment. They were so happy to find out about the twins, it was just adorable. And when she fell, I might have been worried about her a season or two ago, but given this season and my knowledge (thanks to the press release), I wasn't. I was a little surprised at the delivery of the twins prematurely, but it was worth it. I missed the names (although I think one was Davis?) though. If anyone caught them, can you let me know?

Mouth and Millie officially got their own morning show. And apparently Millie impressed enough people to be offered a network position which she refused in order to stay with Mouth. Not terribly surprising and very cute.

Chase and Alex seemed to grow apart when he went to the Air Force, but when he came back, they got right back together. And Chuck (who never said goodbye to Chase) was extremely happy to see him come back.

Clay and Quinn continued the cuteness with Quinn getting Clay a chair to replace the one he lost last week.

Looking forward to next season, I do wonder where they are going. There are 13 episodes left and no storyline really left hanging. I do hope they continue on with the family orientation they have had this year. No forced drama, nothing totally horrible, just life for a group of friends.